


won't apologize for the fire in my eyes

by brodinsons (aeon_entwined)



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator Salvation (2009)
Genre: (mostly...), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Cyborgs, F/M, Gen, M/M, Metal kink, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-War, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:33:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7026838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeon_entwined/pseuds/brodinsons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[California; late 2018]:</p><p>Skynet Central has been destroyed, but the war is far from over. </p><p>And Marcus Wright's journey has only just started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	won't apologize for the fire in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UrbanAmazon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrbanAmazon/gifts).



> _All my life,  
>  One page at a time  
> I'll show you my-my true colors  
> No, I won't apologize  
> For the fire in my eyes  
> Let me show you my-my true colors.  
> It ain't no rainbow_  
> — “True Colors”, Zedd
> 
> Honestly, I don't even really know how to preface this monster. I _adored_ Salvation back in '09, but no one else did so the franchise got scrapped and then resurrected with Genisys last year. The process may repeat itself, depending on how the studio views its middling box office performance. And that's really why I'm still so sore about Salvation. 
> 
> There was so much _potential_. They gave us _Marcus_. They finally gave us an entirely new look at this canon that's been around for decades, and then it gets cut off before it even gets started. Not to mention the leaked and rewritten script, which then left us with contradicting canons _within_ existing canon. 
> 
> Now, speaking of that, this particular fic is based off the _novelization_ ending. Not the film. So, if you haven't read the novelization (or you want to reread, which I highly recommend), try and skim that beforehand. It'll make this fic make a lot more sense. If anyone needs it, I can transcribe the novelization ending for those who don't have access to it. ~~(And if anyone wants to talk Terminator, either here or tumblr or twitter or wherever, PLEASE don't hesitate. I'm always game and will talk your ear off if you let me.)~~
> 
> I'd say a general recollective knowledge of the franchise as it stands would be helpful, since there will be references from everything from events in T1 up through T3 (though I'm loathe to acknowledge that disaster's existence, it did give us Kate and some interesting plot points). 
> 
> ANYWAYS
> 
> Enough of my pretentious complaining. I really am sorry about this thing. I have no idea where it came from and if there's anyone to blame, it would have to be @[thisnewdevilry](http://thisnewdevilry.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Oh! And everybody can thank [this stunning artwork](http://creaturexlll.tumblr.com/post/107241359815/regret-nothing-needed-it) for the second to last sequence. You'll see when you get there.

_You cannot save John Connor._

_Watch me._

He wrecks the lab, and feels a vicious sort of satisfaction in watching the red-eyed visage of Serena Kogan shatter into countless glass shards. 

Serena Kogan is _dead_. Just like he should be, except all her fucking research got subsumed into Skynet so he could be resurrected the second they needed his unwitting compliance. Reborn in fire and mud and ash, like some mythological figure from a book he stopped believing in when he was twelve.

Now, with a head full of everything Skynet had stored in its databanks, up until the moment he synced with the interface (and god, if that’s not enough to shake his faith in what he hopes he still is even further…), Marcus sprints through the adjoining rooms, grabbing real clothes from a couple unfortunate cadavers laid out on surgical tables as he goes.

He finds Connor, right where the feeds indicated he’d be, and barrels into the prototype machine pinning him to the wall by his neck with an enraged howl.

It’s not like the T-600s that Kyle (and Connor, over the radio) told him about; stronger and faster in ways that make Marcus wonder if maybe he’s finally picked a fight with someone bigger than his own size. Still, he has to try. The last thing he’s going to do is give some disembodied genocidal machine using Kogan’s stolen face the satisfaction of being right.

He figures out some effective tactics pretty quickly. Hand to hand is definitely not in his favor, especially since the prototype stands taller than he does, but if he can manage to throw it around and use some improvised weaponry, he can keep it occupied. Frustration isn’t something machines are capable of expressing, but Marcus can’t help grinning viciously at the chrome skull as it keeps coming at him, trying to figure out why this annoying little human-looking thing won’t stay down. 

Then, when he glances to check on Connor, making sure he’s gotten the time to prime whatever bomb he was making, the machine changes tactics. 

Marcus doesn’t have time to avoid the metal fist that punches straight into his chest, reverberating off the coltan ribs with enough force to stall exactly what the machine was targeting. 

As he crumples to the floor, a breathless grunt squeezing out between clenched teeth, Marcus wonders just how poetic the irony has to be that Skynet would kill him using the exact vulnerability they _built _into him.__

Everything winks out as unconsciousness settles over him, and the abruptness of it all is the polar opposite of the memories he still has of the execution table in Longview. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

_Pain._

For a second, that’s all there is. 

Then, everything rushes back in screaming color and he’s lurching up off the freezing concrete, a garbled scream clawing its way out of his throat as he catches sight of Connor hunched over him, eyes wide and disbelieving.

It takes him a brief moment to recognize the cables Connor’s holding in both hands for what they are: open leads torn from an electrical panel somewhere. _Jesus_. Connor could’ve killed himself if he grabbed one of them wrong. And that’s when he realizes that Connor just used them to restart his heart, like a goddamn jumper cable on a car. 

“You okay?” He rasps, the latent electrical surges making him feel twitchy enough to try and get up even as Connor sort of slumps back against the nearest wall.

“I’ll live,” is Connor’s answer, though if Marcus is any judge, he looks worse off than himself. 

Marcus glances around, and spots the prototype a few feet away, but he definitely lost some time in between having his heart punched out and now, because the thing is missing its head. And covered in what looks like a coat of hastily frozen metal. The head is a few feet further away, optics long burned out and jaw gaping, but Marcus still can’t repress the instinctive shudder. Whatever he is underneath, he _isn't _like that.__

“You do that?” He gestures over his shoulder at the locked-up headless machine as he turns his attention back to Connor. 

Connor gives him a toothy bloody smirk, followed by a nod. “Yeah, I did.”

Marcus has to laugh, has to throw his head back and let it out, because really, what else can he do? Literally in the bowels of hell, and they’re still not going down without a fight.

“Come on,” he reaches out, carefully hefting Connor up onto his feet and slinging the arm not currently trying to staunch a pretty nasty wet patch above Connor’s hip across his shoulders. “Let’s get you outta here.”

The trip up through the innards of Skynet doesn’t take much time, since he has the blueprints of the entire base laid out in his head, but he can’t help asking…

“Kyle got out, right? You got him out?”

Connor glances at him, the bloody gash down the side of his face making him look even paler under all the red. “I got him out. The fucking bastard tricked me,” he grunts when they hit a stairwell, and Marcus tries to lift him up enough to avoid the steps. “Imitated Kyle, made me think he was trapped. Wasn’t, though. Just me and him down there.”

_You and that thing and me, actually…_

Marcus feels like he can breathe again, and the sudden wash of cool air over his face couldn’t be more welcome as they finally make it to the surface.

There’s pandemonium across the tarmac, and Marcus has to make an effort not to run into people as he zeroes in on the chopper with a familiar redhead standing by the open bay doors, barking orders. As he approaches, another familiar face, the lieutenant, steps into view.

“Sir!” Barnes almost drops his rifle, and quickly moves forward to take him from Marcus, who doesn’t protest.

Instead, he keeps moving towards the helicopter, and feels that final clenching pressure around his chest disappear when he spots Kyle and Star hunched together on the bench behind the cockpit. 

“Marcus!” Kyle’s face lights up, and Marcus barely has time to brace himself before the kid practically launches himself off the seat. He catches Kyle effortlessly, since he’s not some dreamwalking idiot on the streets of what used to be LA anymore, and grins in spite of himself as he winks at Star and turns his attention to the redhead, Kate.

“Can’t confirm anything but he got pretty beat up down there,” he says, while she stares at him with wide and wary eyes. “It was a prototype. T-800.”

That seems to be all he needs to say, since an odd expression settles over Kate’s face and she immediately turns to Barnes, instructing him how to get Connor onto the rear bench without jostling him too much. Then, she’s barking at the pilots, one of which Marcus realizes is Blair:

“Get us out of here! Closest medical outpost we have operational! Go!”

And with that, Marcus is climbing through the open doors, shoving Kyle back onto the bench, crouching down to take his post in front of the kids and across from Connor himself. The rotor blades roar to life, and they’re rising into the air, leaving the diminishing clash between Connor’s unit and the machines guarding Skynet behind. 

Long minutes of silence pass, and Marcus just observes without comment as Barnes and Kate go about directing the pilots and tending to Connor’s more immediate injuries. He doesn’t seem to be in life-threatening danger, but it’s not like Marcus knows much more than basic first-aid. He can't scan a human's body like the machines can. He'll need more time to go over the specs all filed away in his head, but somehow, his inability to turn himself into a mobile x-ray is comforting enough for the moment. 

Connor seems agitated about something, though Marcus couldn’t guess what it is. The troops back at Skynet are likely taking to the skies with the freed prisoners, so that’s not an issue.

Wait—

The bomb. _Shit_. Did he drop the detonator somewhere? Was it destroyed in the fight with the prototype Marcus wasn’t even around for?

He twitches briefly when Star suddenly comes up in his peripheral vision, and he turns to the girl, frowning slightly. She just blinks at him, with those wide intelligent eyes, and points across the chopper bay to where Connor is currently sprawled out.

“Connor,” he grunts, nodding towards Star once he has the man’s attention.

As Connor looks over, Star reaches into her boot and pulls out…a remote detonator. A tiny little thing, judging by all the shit Marcus has ever dealt with, but it looks intact. She hands it to him and Connor takes it, no small amount of awe in the expression currently settling on his face. 

Marcus straightens up slightly, watching as Kyle does the same. Then, they wait. Connor’s thumb flicks the transmitter, then slides back and forth over the button.

“Are they clear?” He demands hoarsely, and Barnes quickly radios the query to the rest of Tech-Com.

“Yes, sir.” Barnes offers a grim nod a moment later, then taps his headset off.

Connor’s expression hardens, and he practically jams his thumb onto the detonator. 

Marcus startles and grabs hold of the edge of the bay door as the resulting shockwaves from the explosion within Skynet Central ripple outwards, causing the helicopter to shudder briefly. He whips his head around to stare as the harsh lines of the skyscrapers and storage units go up in a proverbially nuclear blast, then tries to tell himself that he’s allowed to be out here. Even if part of him would’ve rather been left on the concrete floor of the assembly plant.

He glances back at Connor, and all the roiling uncertainty in his gut seems to settle a bit at the almost peaceful expression on the man’s face. Then, Connor makes eye contact with him, and Marcus can’t move. Can’t break it. Not without severing something that seems convoluted and important for reasons he can't explain.

Connor nods at him, either a gesture of gratefulness or trust or both (or neither), then falls unconscious on the bench, Kate shifting to hover over him and monitor his vitals.

Marcus shuffles back to rest against the bench next to Kyle’s dangling legs, and exhales a slow breath. Is it over? Is this just the beginning? No one’s written a handbook for what to do after you’ve been executed and resurrected twice. And the whole robot apocalypse thing is new too. Maybe he’ll just wait. Connor’s the reputed prophet, here. Maybe he knows. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

Turns out, Connor’s not in the mood to be prophesying much of anything at the moment. 

They set down at a Resistance outpost a few dozen miles from Skynet Central and the resident medics immediately set up shop between the two choppers. Marcus can’t help but be quietly awed by the speed that they manage to erect a fully functioning hospital ward with nothing but a camouflaged tarp over their heads acting as a roof. 

Granted, calling it a _hospital ward_ is probably a little generous. All the tools and instruments and sterilization equipment is there, but it’s certainly not the cleanest environment, what with the lack of walls meaning sand and grit keeps getting blown in from every direction. 

While Connor recuperates over in his little corner, Kate awkwardly approaches him. She gestures towards his left hand, saying “I could try to…”

Marcus instinctively tucks it against his thigh, the bare coltan fingers folding up into a fist. He shrugs. _Not much to be done, really._ The molten iron had basically cauterized his hand to the wrist, leaving the exposed metal crisp and shiny. Judging by the files he was able to piece together in his head (and from Kate’s observations back at the old base), his regenerative abilities far surpass those of anything the Connors have ever encountered. The gash over his chest is already healed, leaving nothing but bruising behind, but there’s not much his body can do about the hand. 

“You don’t have a glove lying around, do you?” He asks, a hopeful smirk quirking his lips. 

Kate seems to relax after that, and she does find him a glove that fits. He feels a bit like a poor man's Michael Jackson, what with just the one, but at least it doesn’t draw as many scornful sidelong looks as the naked metal did. Not that anyone’s opinion really means shit to him at this point, though it is easier to find time to himself without everyone gawking thanks to how obviously _other_ he is.

Kyle hangs close to him too, up until Connor recovers enough to start disobeying the docs and wander around. Then, the kid’s following along after him, a reverent sort of hero-worship in the way he hangs on Connor’s every word.

Marcus doesn’t have quite the same regard for the new de facto leader of the Resistance, given their initial meeting and the subsequent fallout, but their little trip down the rabbit hole did a lot for Marcus’ opinion of the man.

He can’t remember the last time somebody risked their own life to jam a couple improvised jumper cables into his chest to bring him back to life, after all. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

Once the collective medics and soldiers pack everything up into either trucks or the choppers, there’s a slow exodus to a new base that Connor directs the lead pilots to. No sense chatting about it over the radio, since there’s every possibility that mechanical ears might be listening, and Marcus can appreciate the wisdom in that, at the very least.

It actually ends up being somewhat close to the Death Valley facility that Connor’s former unit assailed before tripping the booby trapped bomb that destroyed it and killed everyone but Connor. Marcus doesn’t remember any of that, after Kate elaborates for him. He does remember clawing his way up through the mud of the wreckage, though. He still wonders if it’s more accurate to say he was activated, instead of woken up. 

That’s what he hates most about this new life: not knowing. He knows the chip is gone, he tore it out of his own skull, but he doesn’t know if Skynet still has other methods of tapping into his brain. 

Once the ragged band of soldiers, medics, and civilians starts settling into their new home, Marcus raises his concerns in a brief aside to Kate, since he has no desire to bring it up with Connor and get chained up again for his trouble. 

She agrees to give him a onceover after she finishes on-boarding the new arrivals, and he breathes a little easier. Maybe she’ll go straight to Connor and he’ll get strung up anyways, but after saving her apparent husband, she’s been a little more willing to listening to him.

And that’s an interesting thread that he follows when he’s sat in a storage room, empty except for several racks of weaponry and explosives, Kate poking and prodding into the scarred over incision at the base of his skull and the bruised gash on his chest. 

Connor and Kate are married, right? He’s seen the rings on their fingers. And Kate’s very obviously pregnant, which he can only imagine would be a nightmare in this hellish future world. So why do they seem to make every effort to avoid each other unless an encounter is absolutely necessary? 

Marcus usually wasn't very interested in the private lives of people around him, but for some reason, this just won’t leave him alone. Thanks to the data dump in his head, he understands Connor’s importance now, though he’s having a hard time making sense of all the paradoxical timeline bullshit. Skynet wanted to kill him to prevent exactly what came to pass after it nuked Command’s sub. And Marcus did a pretty good job of fucking that up for it, if he’s being honest. So, now what? Is he even supposed to be here?

“Honestly, Marcus, if there is a way for them to remote their way in, I can’t see anything they’d be able to use,” Kate finally straightens up, gloved and lightly bloodied hands on her hips as she gives him a thoughtful look. 

Marcus glances up, then rolls his neck and shoulders, wincing at the now-obvious grind of something that is definitely not bone. He offers a half smile, then gets up off the table.

“Well, no harm in making sure, right?” He jokes, and feels a little relieved when she joins in with a private little smile. 

Now that that’s taken care of, Marcus pulls the heavy door open and almost startles when he finds Kyle standing immediately outside. The kid looks nervous. Worried, maybe. Mouth a little downturned, eyes wide. Jesus, it’s gonna take a while to get used to all these fine-tuned observational instincts. Just another thing he gets to thank Skynet for.

“I didn’t know where you went,” Kyle says, expression softening once he sees Kate packing up her kit in the background. “I thought…are you okay?”

Marcus sighs, then pulls Kyle against him, close enough to get his gloved hand up and rub his metal knuckles carefully into Kyle’s scalp. There’s a startled yelp, but Kyle doesn’t struggle too much, just slapping ineffectually at the arms holding him prisoner while swearing and laughing. It's...freeing, in a way. Kyle grounds him. Makes him remember who he is and why he's doing this when the ashen landscape beyond the confines of their base threatens to send him in a tailspin back to the day he came to and found out the world had ended.

“I’m fine, kid,” Marcus finally lets him go, then reaches out to straighten Kyle’s new jacket on him (a gift from Connor himself, and Kyle hasn’t taken it off since). “Go get Star and get some food. Stop worryin’ about me.”

Kyle grins up at him, then hugs him around the middle before loping off down the hall, calling for Star as he goes. 

Marcus’ arms are still raised in surprise when Kate emerges from the room, one eyebrow quirked.

“You know, we’ve been waiting for Kyle for a long time,” she says, and Marcus knows there’s a lot she isn’t saying. “We never anticipated you.”

Marcus grunts in acknowledgement, since he’s not in the mood to figure out whether that was a compliment or not, then decides to make himself scarce when he spots Connor in the shadows a door down, clearly having watched the proceedings. He follows the hall Kyle took off down, only glancing back once to see Connor and Kate tilting their heads close together, probably discussing Kate’s findings from her examination.

He'd tune into the conversation, if he was inclined towards being a bigger masochistic piece of shit than he already is, but he decides against it. No sense in digging a deeper hole for himself just for the satisfaction of being the first one to the bottom while everyone else is trying to bury him. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

Marcus does his best to avoid Connor and whatever drama’s going on between the marrieds up until Kyle’s first mission in the field a few months later.

He hadn’t liked it when Kyle first told him, all ramped up on adrenaline and excitement, and he likes it even less now, having been confined to the base where all he can do is monitor the radio feeds as the Tech-Com unit moves in on a supposed R&D site that came online after Skynet Central's destruction.

He doesn't have to listen to the garbled screams of dying men, thank God, but that doesn't make it any easier to sit around on tenterhooks for hours as the sentries at the base change shifts and give him odd looks after he hasn't moved for a solid quarter of a day.

When the unit finally traipses back to the base two days later, dirty and exhausted but alive, Marcus zeros in on Connor and marches straight over, expression thunderous.

“He is _not_ ready, Connor,” he growls, stabbing his right index finger into Connor’s chest. “He might be a smart kid, but he is _not_ ready to be out there.”

Connor curls his lip and smacks Marcus’ hand away, which only rankles Marcus further.

“You have _no idea_ what he is or isn’t ready for, Wright,” Connor gets right into his personal space, eyes narrowed. “You have _no idea_ about any of this. You’re a fucking guest, so get used to it.”

Well…at least he’s _Wright_ , now. Something of an improvement on _it_. As for the rest of it, he’ll get his answers one way or another. Kate is usually more forthcoming, but these things don’t seem to be hers to tell. Maybe he’ll just chain Connor up and see how it goes. All’s fair in love and war, right? 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

And that’s just another benchmark of their rather contentious relationship. 

The closer Kate gets to her due date, the more agitated Connor gets. He snaps at anyone and everyone, heads up unnecessarily risky missions, and basically turns into a right bastard whenever he’s not sleeping. Which isn’t often. 

Eventually, Kate approaches _him_ with a request: shadow Connor and Kyle on the assault planned for the scoped and observed R &D site the next day.

After he kits himself out in the storeroom just before the scheduled departure, he almost runs headlong into Connor on his way out the door.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Connor gives him a narrow onceover. “I didn’t tell you to go anywhere.”

Marcus smirks at him, gloved hand tightening on the grip of the revolver in his thigh holster. “I’m your new wingman, Connor,” he says, bright enough to grate like hell on anyone’s nerves. “Doc’s orders.”

Judging by the look on Connor’s face, Marcus is going to be avoiding the general vicinity of the marrieds once they get back. That’s one earful he doesn’t want to be party to.

The actual offensive on the R&D site isn’t particularly eventful, though it is a task to keep an eye on both Kyle _and_ Connor, since they seem the most liable to do something idiotically risky in the name of coming out of this victorious.

Kyle is pretty much surrounded by experienced field soldiers the entire time, so that makes it a bit easier for Marcus to throw himself in front of Connor when the T-600 guard shows up without worrying that he’s left Kyle alone and defenseless. 

He grunts with the impact of several minigun rounds off his shoulders and legs, then charges the thing when it tries to turn its attention on Kyle’s squad. Marcus tackles it to the ground with an enraged howl, shoving the minigun out of his way so he can grab hold of the weathered skull and wrench it clean off.

The red optics fizzle out and the machine dies an ignominious death at the hand of what Skynet once thought was its greatest weapon. 

Marcus catches a glimpse of Kyle’s terrified and impressed expression in between the shifting bodies of his squad, and since he doesn’t particularly feel like standing in front of the kid right now, turns his attention back to Connor.

Connor’s still staring at him, though he’s back on his feet from where Marcus had practically flattened him against the rocky outcrop they’d been using as a vantage point to arrange the bombs. Marcus dusts himself off, kicking at the oddly bent limbs of the Terminator to move them out of his way, then briefly considers stealing the minigun off its arm to bring back to base.

“…thank you,” Connor says eventually, eyes still on his face. “For Kyle, and me.”

Marcus shrugs, rolling his shoulders to make sure none of the rounds got caught in his joints. “Told you, Doc’s orders. I’m just here to make sure you two idiots don’t get yourselves killed.”

Rather than backing off with a condescending parting shot, Connor actually _chuckles_. Marcus blinks at him.

“Long story, Wright,” Connor claps him on the shoulder, then starts to move on. “Maybe someday. We’ll see.”

Marcus stares after him as he goes, helping the assembled soldiers with priming all the explosives they brought to blow the entire site sky high. 

Are they…sort-of-friends now? If there’s one thing he wasn’t expecting from Connor on this mission, it was a concession. Of any kind. Now he feels almost wrong footed. And especially so with Connor’s cryptic half promise. Long story about _what_? Why does he constantly feel like he’s missing huge gaps in some important narrative, even with all the bullshit he crammed into his brain in the heart of Skynet? He’s gonna find out somehow, if he has to wring Connor’s damn neck to finally get a proper answer. That’s a promise. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

Connor isn’t even there when the baby’s born.

With Skynet Central in the Americas destroyed and the machines on the defensive, his knowledge of the past and future has become invaluable. When radio transmissions are deemed too risky, given the information they want to trade, he ends up having to take a squadron and usually rendezvous with various Resistance outposts through California and into Nevada. 

Marcus could tell he didn’t want to go this time, with Kate so close to her due date, but with Skynet’s main hub reduced to a smoldering crater, there’s no time to keep vital intel (in this case, a modified version of the transmission signal that can deactivate machines at close range without attracting unwanted attention) to themselves. So, he took Barnes and Blair and a few handpicked others, and went.

Marcus had caught the marrieds in an awkward embrace in the tunnel just outside the war room prior to the scheduled departure. He quickly turned back the way he’d come, since it seemed inappropriate to intrude, but he could feel Connor’s eyes on him until he'd disappeared around the last curve in the hall.

Now he’s standing guard outside the cobbled-together medical ward, listening to the faint sounds of relieved nurses and the lone cry of a newborn.

A fucking _baby_. Wonders never cease, even after the apocalypse.

Once a few hours go by, he makes an attempt to see Kate. The soldier standing guard _inside_ the door doesn’t look very keen on it, but at least she doesn’t go for her gun. 

Marcus strides slowly towards the bed, gaze locked on an exhausted Kate with a small bundle in her arms. 

“Hey,” she says, giving him a patient smile that she usually reserves for nervous newcomers. It’s only fair, really.

“Everybody okay in here?” Marcus clears his throat when the words come out a little pitched, then offers a lopsided grin. 

Kate laughs, soft and tired but still as alive as ever. “Yeah, we’re okay.”

“She got a name?” Marcus stares down at the tiny thing, remembering the nurse’s voice ages ago announcing _it’s a girl_ behind the steel door.

“Sarah,” Kate smiles down at the baby, then up at him again. “Her name’s Sarah.” 

“Sarah…” Marcus rolls it off his tongue, recalling quite a few files in his head involving that name. He reaches a hand out, the good hand, and watches in amazement as a tiny hand slips out of the swaddling cloth, latching onto his index finger. 

He’s still not quite sure if this new world he woke up to is indeed hell, but with Kate’s laughter in his ears and the hope for the future grasping at his hand, he’s starting to think it might not be. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

As Sarah grows, Kate and Connor grow further apart.

It’s sort of like having courtside seats to watch a glacier slowly split its way in two, if Marcus were inclined towards shit poor poetry. Kate takes up her former duties as she recovers, and takes on a good portion of John’s too. 

Maybe having a child running around the base gives her a strength Marcus hadn’t even seen before, or maybe it was there all along, and she just needed everybody to stop treating her like she had a damn eggshell for a belly. Either way, she almost supersedes her husband on the command ladder.

She knows as much as Connor does, both about the machines and their plans, so her voice crackles over the radios almost as often as Connor’s. She utilizes her position to teach Sarah the ropes, even at such a young age. The kid was practically born into Tech-Com, so Marcus can only imagine she’ll end up leading this whole ragged bunch someday.

Hopefully, she won’t need to lead an army. Connor’s the one who’s supposed to win this mess. He’s supposed to _lead humanity to victory_. 

If he’s using the seemingly endless pile of data and files in his head and the whispers from Connor and Kate right, victory should be happing in 2029. And while the idea of fighting this war for another six years is the most unappealing thought he’s had in a while, at least it’s not _sixty_ years.

That does make him think, though. 

Through trial and error in the field over the last few years, he’s figured out that he can go hand to hand with any of the T-series machines, though he does usually need to utilize his agility to end the fight before their superior weight can pin him someplace he can’t wriggle out of. He can hold up against gunfire about as well as any of them, although he does have the disadvantage of having to try and protect the goddamn organs Skynet decided to leave him with. So, he tries to avoid it as much as possible.

Which is (sort of) why he ends up bringing it up with Connor after he does wind up taking another hail of minigun rounds to protect Blair and Barnes on their recent scouting mission. 

“How long am I gonna…last?” He almost trips over the last word, and at least has the comfort of experiencing a vicious stab of resentment that feels all too human.

Connor blinks over at him, seemingly lost for words for a moment as he pauses in the middle of tweezing the last of the rounds out of Marcus’ back. 

“Honestly? I have no idea, Wright,” he lifts a shoulder, then frowns as he watches the naked metal hand resting on the table flexing in and out of a fist. “I’ve seen a lot of machines in my day, but you’re in another league. Uncle Bob said something about 120 years, but that’s with the T-800 power cells. You don’t have one. Maybe that long? Maybe less?”

Marcus is less concerned about living two lifetimes in this metal prison than the bizarre name Connor just used. _Uncle Bob?_ Who the hell is that?

“Uncle Bob?” Marcus quirks an eyebrow at the man, and watches as he seems to withdraw into himself.

It’s a quiet night. There’s a lot more of those lately, now that the worldwide Resistance branches have taken up Connor’s fight and brought it to the Skynet nodes in their own territories. Marcus doesn’t feel like he’s crossing any line now to push for a little more as they pack up the tools and move outside to watch the night sky.

“A T-800 saved me when I was ten,” Connor said abruptly, and his tone indicates that he’s about to launch into a story, so Marcus gets even more curious. “I reprogram it in seven years and send it back to keep the T-1000 from killing my mother and I. I called it Uncle Bob on the fly to try and keep our cover from getting blown. Shows how much I know about espionage.”

Marcus snorts a laugh, settling against the concrete at his back and getting comfortable next to humanity’s prophetic savior.

“My mom, Sarah, she went through a lot of guys before we got separated. I didn’t really like any of them. The T-800…he was the closest thing I ever had to a father. And I only had him for a week.”

Marcus pays close attention to the shift from _it_ to _he_ , but doesn’t comment. “What happened?”

“He died,” Connor’s expression has gone distant as he stares at the crumbling wall on the other side of the little alcove. “I mean, he knocked the T-1000 into an industrial smelting vat. But he told us no one could ever find any future tech if we wanted to stop Judgment Day. So my mom had to put him in the vat too. Christ, I cried for _days_ …”

Suddenly, Connor’s near-obsession with taking him aside after the missions he tags along on to make sure all the bullets are out is starting to make sense. And the determinedly terse questions about his _functionality_ in between said missions. 

“Hey,” Marcus shifts enough to reach out, covering the hand Connor has clenched over the bend of his knee and giving it a gentle shake. “It’s okay. Trust me, I get it.”

“No, you really don’t,” Connor laughs dryly, tilting his head back against the wall and probably trying not to be too obvious about blinking the almost-tears back. “Can’t believe I’ve lasted this long.”

“Everyone dies for me,” he forges on, and Marcus wonders when this turned into a confessional. “ _Everyone_ dies for me and I _can’t stop it_.”

Marcus doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He does notice that Connor hasn’t made an effort to shake the hand on his knee off, so he decides not to move away just yet.

“Do you believe in fate?” Connor turns to him, the flickering light from the lantern on the wall further down the tunnel reflecting brightly in his eyes. 

“No,” Marcus shakes his head. “If I did, I wouldn’t have saved your ass back in San Francisco.”

Connor blinks at him, startled but maybe just a little bit pleased. 

It occurs to Marcus that they’re far and away in each other’s personal space, and have been for a while. Something in his chest _wrenches_ when he sees Connor’s gaze flick to his mouth, and in that moment, all the little jagged pieces from the first time he went out into the field as Kyle and Connor’s shadow fit together.

Fuck, is his life just a never-ending sequence of poetic ironies? Somehow, it seems pretty unlikely that Skynet shoved that chip in his head with the intention of their _perfect infiltrator_ up and _falling for_ the target he was supposed to lead into the beast’s belly.

Marcus exhales slowly and turns his face toward the sky overhead, resting his skull against the concrete behind them. He thinks of Kate, of little Sarah, and wonders if the naked pale line across Connor’s ring finger is recent, or if he just hasn’t been paying attention lately.

He hears Connor mutter a gruff “sorry”, quickly followed by the absence of the sizable presence at his side. When he opens his eyes again, Marcus is alone. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

Life goes on.

Connor leads his troops and tries to raise his daughter. Kate patches people up and arms Resistance branches around the world with new tactical knowledge when she figures out how to access the old port at the base of his skull and decrypt the data files he managed to steal from San Francisco. Kyle grows into a man and Star into a young woman, and Marcus can’t really stop seeing them as those scrappy kids from Los Angeles. Blair grins at him every time they pass in the halls or end up shoulder to shoulder in the field. Barnes distrusts him just a little less as every year passes by. 

Soon enough, it’s 2029, and the activity at the base is nearing a fever pitch. 

Kyle comes running up to him one night, still that animated sixteen-year-old boy for all that he’s a man of twenty-seven now. 

“He picked me, Marcus,” he says, expression alight with the kind of manic energy a new mission usually gives people. “I’m going back to save Sarah Connor.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. This is all the paradoxical time travel bullshit Kate told him about. Why Kyle? Why does it have to be _Kyle_?

“’Course he picked you,” Marcus smirks, cuffing Kyle over the head and earning a playful shove for it. “You’re the best of us, kid.”

“I’ll see you around, right?” Kyle pushes his favored forest green beanie up off his forehead, the gesture somehow making him look years younger. “When I get back?”

Marcus huffs a disbelieving noise. “And where exactly am I going? ‘Course I’ll be here. Now go on. Go be a hero.”

Kyle grins and gives him a quick bear hug before his attention gets called to the end of the hall, where Barnes is barking his name. _Time to go_.

Marcus watches him go, watches Barnes clap him on the shoulder, and then they’re gone. According to Kate, they’ve got a very narrow window to make use of the time displacement equipment they captured the previous day. The T-800 is already back in 1984. Now it’s Kyle’s turn.

When Connor returns the next evening, he looks worse than the time his entire squadron got ambushed by a lone trio of 600s in Nevada years ago. Marcus’ instincts lock up, and he immediately corners the man in the quietest corner of the base he can find.

“What is it?” He demands, expression hard and eyes harder. “Where’s Kyle?”

Connor gives him an exhausted look. “1984, Wright. You know that.”

“I don’t care about your time travel bullshit, when’s he supposed to come back?”

Connor’s answering look is enough to have every last ounce of blood in Marcus’ body run cold. 

“What have you done?” He whispers, hoarse. 

“I send him back, he saves my mother…and the machine kills him.”

Marcus stares at him, unwilling to believe, but Connor’s refusal to meet his gaze tells him everything he needs to know. 

The wounded sound claws its way out of his throat and he whirls away from Connor, throwing his weight and fists into the wall that shudders and crumbles under the force of his directionless rage. _Kyyyyyyyle!_ He buries his fists into the concrete, scraping the knuckles on his right hand down to the metal in seconds, and only forces himself to stop when he can register a voice over his own (silent?) screams and broad hands grappling with his arms.

Connor shoves his way between him and the wall once he stops throwing punches, gripping him by the shoulders.

“Wright, look at me,” Connor grabs him by the back of the head, forcing him to do just that. “ _Look at me_.”

“You…” Marcus coughs wetly, voice all wrong and eyes burning. “You…Kyle…”

“Yes, I did it. I did it and I’m going to hate myself for the rest of my life, just like I do over everyone else that dies,” Connor growls, giving him a little shake. “You wanna hear the tapes? We can listen to the tapes. You can listen to what I’ve been living with since she died. You wanna hate me? Fine, hate me. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d try and talk him out of it. And you’d probably have done it, too. So hate me. But don’t you dare turn your back on me.”

Marcus stares at him, the corners of his eyes still prickling at he blinks furiously and tries to make sense of the torn expression on Connor’s face. 

“He’s gone?” Marcus rasps, still clinging to that last desperate thread that's unraveling quicker than he can grasp for it.

“He’s gone,” Connor says, though the rest of him practically screams: _I would have saved him if I could_.

Marcus slumps against Connor’s shoulder, both ruined hands coming up to fist in the man’s jacket as sobs wrack his entire body. He can’t remember the last time he cried like this. He can’t remember the last time he cried _at all_. But there’s a gaping hole in him like Connor (no, _Skynet_ ) just reached in and tore out his still beating heart.

“Let it go,” Connor mutters into his shorn hair, both hands gripping the fabric pulled tight across his back. “Let it out, Wright. It’s over.” 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

It’s 2032 and it’s not over.

Skynet is dead. The Resistance is victorious. But, just because the strategic central cores are destroyed doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of independently operating machines still out there. Tracking, hunting, killing.

In between raising her child and helping global Resistance branches start culling their respective territories and rescuing survivors that somehow managed to avoid the final battles, Kate finds time to give him another piece of unwanted trivia: according to the T-850 that rescued them just before the bombs fell in this timeline, this is the year Connor dies.

Kate reprograms the T-850 and sends it back to save them, but Connor dies. And that’s what doesn’t sit well with him. At all.

He fucking _died_ for this bastard, and the bastard’s going to die on him? At an outdated model’s hand, no less? Marcus grinds his coltan fingers together, imagining what it would feel like to punch straight through the machine’s chrome skull. 

So, when Connor announces that he’ll be taking a routine tour of the still-functioning site housing the last remaining stateside time displacement unit, Marcus scrambles out of his bunk and grabs the belt and rifle he’d stashed under the mattress. He spots Blair on his way down the hall and pauses. If he doesn’t come back from this one…

“Hey,” he catches her arm and earns a puzzled look for his trouble. “Look, this won’t make much sense but…take care of yourself. Take care of everybody. You deserve this. Second chances, remember?”

She still looks bemused, but the reference to that night they spent huddled by the fire at the abandoned racetrack is enough to make her smile. Marcus can’t blame her. He’s being as cryptic as Connor. All this time travel bullshit is enough to mess with anyone’s head. Even a machine’s, apparently.

“You’re a good man, Marcus,” she calls as he hurries off, and when he turns back, she offers a casual salute. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

It’s no real surprise that everything goes to hell real fast once Connor's squadron gets inside the gates.

There aren’t any hidden booby traps or explosives, but a handful of T-800s crawling out of the woodwork with plasma rifles is enough to send anybody’s day down the shitter. 

Marcus throws himself into the fight, trying to keep most of their firepower focused on him so the unfortunately soft and human soldiers behind him can figure out how to obliterate these bastards. It’s a decent tactic, even if it means having to constantly flinch at odd angles to keep them from hitting anything vital. And rather than the silence he’s gotten used to over the years, the soldiers are actually rallying with him, shouting his name as they prime their weapons and tell him where to move to open up weaknesses in the machines’ defenses. 

Unfortunately, thanks to his focus on making sure the soldiers don’t get mowed down before they can put the 800s down, he loses track of Connor. 

One of the machines breaks rank, and that’s when he realizes his lapse.

_Fuck._

Since the squadron is pretty effectively sheltered and able to fend for themselves against the remaining 800s, Marcus breaks off and sprints after it. And while they can definitely move faster than their oversized predecessors, they still can’t match his agility. 

Just before it reaches the broken door that he can only assume Connor went in through, Marcus slams the machine up against the metal wall. Disoriented and distracted, it shakes the blow off and focuses on him instead. He’ll never get tired of the later machines having to pause once they see him, trying to figure out what the hell he is and how they can kill him, since a measly little human wouldn’t have been able to budge an 800 already braced against a doorframe.

“Come on, you tin can,” Marcus snarls at it, showing all his teeth. “Come and get me.”

It takes a few swipes at him, but he’s had plenty more practice since the first prototype all the way back in San Francisco. 

He dances with it for a bit, trading punches and deliberately making sure it can’t get a lock on the blatant vulnerability inside the left half of his coltan ribcage. Then, once it seems to be getting confused, Marcus uses his hard-won athleticism to bound off the metal wall behind it and use his weight to bring it crashing to the ground in an awkward pile of steel and flesh-covered metal.

The internal gears rumble and grind uselessly as it tries to grapple with him, even facing the wrong way, but he’s had enough.

Marcus grabs it by the jaw and back of the skull, then _yanks_ the whole head clean off. It’s become something of a signature kill move for him, whenever he’s gone out into the field. Bullets are fine, but if you want to get the job done permanently, disconnect the chip from the body. Then destroy the skull, preferably.

Maybe they can use this one, he muses, staring down at the sparking and twitching endoskeleton while the skull hangs from his good fist by a few silver vertebrae. 

A few scattered reports of gunfire, followed by a raucous cheer, jerk him out of his contemplation. “Connor!” He turns and wrenches the door open one-handed. “Connor!”

There’s nothing inside the hall, just blank walls and a few blinking lights at the end of it, and the nervous tension coils tighter in Marcus’ gut.

“Connor!” He spins around, fingers still clenched around the 800’s spine as he frantically scans every shadow in the vicinity. “ _John!_ ”

“Marcus?”

There he is, climbing down from the observation deck on top of the structure that would’ve let him look down into the space holding the time displacement unit. He looks…suspiciously uninjured, and Marcus tenses up. 

He lost track of Connor. There was a definite stretch of time where he did not know where Connor was, or if there were more machines than the ones meant to head them off. 

Connor seems a little wary of him, which is a good sign, since the real one would absolutely not just come running. Then, Connor’s reaching for him, frowning, and Marcus reacts instinctively.

He catches Connor’s wrist in his left hand, the coltan fingertips digging in hard enough to break skin. Or distort polymimetic alloy.

Connor winces, just a subtle thing, and Marcus realizes he’s never been more relieved to see blood anywhere than he is right now. 

“Sorry—“ he forces his fingers to unclench, then drops his arm. “I just…sorry.”

Connor’s flexing his hand, but he’s not looking at the blood trickling from the imprints of five inhuman fingertips. 

“I think you just impressed me more in thirty seconds than you have in the last decade,” he huffs out a laugh, then takes a step forward. “Lesson one: trust—“

“—nobody.” Marcus rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t move to push Connor away. “Yeah, Connor. I remember the tapes.”

“No.”

“No?” Marcus cocks his head, his stupid heart thumping a little faster as Connor reaches up, hesitating for a split second before settling his hand against the side of his jaw.

“I kinda liked what you were calling me a minute ago.”

Marcus huffs a laugh, mimicking Connor, then leans forward just enough to feel warm breath washing over his chin. “John…”

The _n_ barely rolls off his tongue before Con- _John_ is lurching forward, kissing him messily. Marcus brings his hand up on instinct, cradling the side of John’s face as they lick and bite their way into each other’s mouths. It’s _primal_ in a way that satisfies an urge that’s been simmering away under his skin for years, now. It’s _good_.

Marcus flinches when they pause and he realizes it’s the metal hand he’s touching John with, but John doesn’t let him pull it away. Instead, he fits his other hand over it and keeps it there, giving Marcus a sly look in the process.

“You’re a kinky bastard, you know that?” Marcus ducks in to steal another kiss and tug John’s lower lip between his teeth as he pulls back. 

“I’ve known it a lot longer than you have, trust me.” John flicks his gaze down to the empty-eyed skull still dangling from Marcus’ fist, then throws his head back and _laughs_. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

Marcus is sure he’ll be able to appreciate the full-circle quality to their first kiss happening quite literally in the heart of what’s left of the enemy’s territory, but for now, he’s a little more focused on the figure looming over him on this rickety thing that’s trying to call itself a bed.

“Y’know,” he slides both hands up John’s sides, enjoying the shiver that travels down the man’s entire body in reaction to the dual sensations of flesh and metal against his skin. “For being leader of the Resistance, you sure got some shitty perks here. I think I’m gonna have a kink in my back in a couple hours and I don’t even have real _bones_.”

“You fuckin’-“

They wrestle around a bit, almost collapsing the already flimsy mattress in the process. Marcus finally ends up on top, and grins down as John reluctantly goes still under him.

“So,” he traces his coltan index finger down the center of John’s bare scarred chest, and revels in the way the strong body seems to just _melt_ at the touch. “I think I’d like to know how long you’ve been thinking about this.”

“Years,” John colors a bit across his cheeks, but he doesn’t look away. “Couldn’t tell you a date. It’s been a long time.”

“Is it this?” Marcus waves the metal fingers idly in the air before laying the hand lightly on John's throat, the silver thumb resting just under John's fluttering pulse. 

John rolls his eyes, though he doesn’t reach up to push the hand away. “Yes, I like your insides. No, they’re not why we’re here right now.”

Marcus chooses to let that go for a minute in favor of settling his weight over John, giving his mouth clear access to lick and nip across the broad line of the man’s shoulder. He tastes like smoke and sweat and gunpowder. Heady. His hips grind down instinctively, and John’s answering groan as his stutter upwards is infinitely rewarding.

Undressing had been a bit of an experience, since John seemed pretty keen on finding out just _how close_ to the anatomical template Skynet stayed when they rebuilt him.

It’s not like you can tell much of anything from the outside. He didn’t wake up with nothing between his legs or no body hair or the muscles of a bodybuilder, all of which would’ve been dead giveaways that something was wrong if he had. As it stands, he can fight and fuck and just about anything in between, and that’s good enough for him. Hopefully, it’s good enough for John.

“So,” he glances up from tasting John’s chest, hips still working at a casual pace. “What happens next?”

John blinks, then fixes him with a cross look. “You never fucked a man, Wright?”

Marcus bites him for that, and tries to keep from grinning too much. “No, you asshole. I mean in general. What’re we gonna do in the morning when we wake up and the world’s still out there?”

John’s expression softens a little, and he arches up as a harder thrust from Marcus drags their cocks together just right. 

“I…I have no idea.” He laughs, self deprecating and dry, but his hands are clutching at Marcus’ back like he’s going to fly apart if he lets go. “This is as far as the map took us. We’re on our own, now.”

“Scared?” Marcus watches him, and he can tell John knows he’s not mocking him.

“Little bit,” John gasps at another good thrust. “Don’t know what to do with the unknown.”

Having the _savior of humanity_ admit to being scared is a bit of a rush. Especially so when he himself is fucking terrified without markers to look for, at the least. He didn’t ask to be thrown into this world. It's been fourteen years and he’s still trying to figure out how to adapt.

“Nnh,” John grabs for his nape, mouth falling open as a spasm wracks his body. 

_He’s beautiful like this_ , Marcus realizes. He’d always thought John was appealing, in that rugged sort of soldier of fortune way. But he’s beautiful here, all the walls stripped away and nothing between them but their own skin.

“ _Marcus—!_ ” John’s eyes fly open and Marcus has to commit every second of this to his photographic memory; every twitch of John’s muscles, every droplet of semen that splatters up his belly and chest.

John goes boneless within a few moments, and Marcus gets comfortable sprawled half on him and half on the mattress, left hand splayed possessively over the center of John’s chest. He waits for the heartbeat under his coltan fingers to slow, then leans over to kiss the scarred cheek.

“Mm,” John leans into the contact, then squints up at him. “D’you need—?”

“Nah,” Marcus shakes his head, grinning. “That was the appetizer. I’m waiting for the main course.”

John laughs at that, a low rumbling sound that only makes an appearance but rarely. “I’m forty-seven, you asshole. Not all of us have a two second refractory period.”

Marcus doesn’t bother pointing out that he’s technically fifty-seven now, though he doesn’t look it. Original equipment or not, he will admit that John has a point about the refractory period. John’s looking at him a little strangely, so Marcus cocks his head, waiting.

“Do you love me?”

The question isn’t at all what he was expecting, and Marcus’ fingers flex awkwardly for a moment, dragging against John’s skin. 

“Yeah,” he realizes, and exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I think I do.”

John makes a satisfied sound and settles a little closer, yawning widely as he does. “Good. Love you too.”

Marcus lays his head on the pillow, forehead pressed against John’s temple. He wonders how much longer they’re both going to live. Did they thwart the last time traveling machine's recollections of that particular future? Are they free? He hopes so. He wants to be. But if he can love John, and have that love returned the same way, maybe they already are. 

After all, he’s been the one anomaly from the second he woke up till now. Maybe they’ve been changing the future since San Francisco. 

He exhales a sigh and doesn't even startle when John shifts over to lay his head right on Marcus' chest, the rest of him going still and decidedly unconscious. It's quiet enough that Blair’s voice from years ago echoes in Marcus' head, and he smiles. 

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ 

_And when you’re unsure…well, just always follow your heart, John._


End file.
